Originally Posted by GUMP (Post 657260)

Did you read my post about how the 2015 Camaro came to be so light? There has to be a concession for all of the stuff that can legally be taken out. If not, you could not legally race these late model cars. If they would allow 1,000 lbs. of ballast I think the car would be a tad dangerous.....

Originally Posted by SS/GSI (Post 657283)

Darin, I have no idea where you get that there would be 1000#'s of ballast in the car. I also do not understand how you do not comprehend the basis of "Shipping Weight" as it pertains to how NHRA forms what we know as being the Stock Classification Guide. To actually mention that their "should be" a concession for what we are legally allowed to remove?!?! So I guess the new cars are the only ones who removed back seats, factory front seats, AC, Heater Box, Spare Tire, OEM Fuel Tank +++??? You do not think that older model cars would like this preferential SW treatment? Do we start putting the roll cage weights onto shipping weights...mild steel or chromoly...6, 8, 10 point or FC cage???!!!

With the current SW on the '15 Camaro(Natural A car, can run AA/A/B) 1 competitor last year ran AA, 1 ran A and 6 ran B(including Mr. Warren), so obviously the car fits A or B best. The car, if given the proper shipping weight would be capable of running C; therefore needing to add 200#'s. In SS it would go from G/H/I to H/I/J; therefore adding 180#'s from its lowest class.

If the solution to the integrity of the Stock Classification Guide is for NHRA and all the squeaky wheels out there is to distort and/or get rid of correct SW's all together and run as low as you can weigh, then I guess there is not need to call ourselves STK and SS....Steel NO-Box Bracket I & II to the lanes!!!

Originally Posted by SS/GSI (Post 657283)

With the current SW on the '15 Camaro(Natural A car, can run AA/A/B) 1 competitor last year ran AA, 1 ran A and 6 ran B(including Mr. Warren), so obviously the car fits A or B best. The car, if given the proper shipping weight would be capable of running C; therefore needing to add 200#'s. In SS it would go from G/H/I to H/I/J; therefore adding 180#'s from its lowest class.

Originally Posted by GUMP (Post 657299)

That means to run C it would need to be 3775. As I have already explained, that would be over 700 lbs. of ballast. This would make the car technically illegal and unsafe too.

This is a link to an on-going project that I have with Chevrolet. I have noted a lot of weights of things that we removed. Note that just the wheels and tires are over 240 lbs.!!

https://www.camaro6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=538617

These cars are not even close to Stockers. If I were to convert them, they would easily be 3,000 lbs. including driver.

Originally Posted by GUMP (Post 657115)

This argument goes back to 2009 when I purchased one of the very first BIW Camaros. There was some heated discussion about the shipping weight. The gentleman at Chevrolet would not listen and submitted the 2010 Camaro at around 3,800 lbs. without driver.

At that time, nobody had really done anything with one of these cars. Since I knew that Chevrolet wanted to build the COPO, I tried to get them to work with me to come up with an NHRA accepted rear suspension. My emails went unanswered.

In 2011 I purchased a zero option 1 SS Camaro. It weighed around 3600 lbs. minus driver. At the PRI Show I crawled under the COPO and measured the rear suspension. I then went to Bruce at NHRA and worked with him to make it legal for the 2010 Camaro. I went home and built it. All the time sharing with Bruce.

Before I got the car finished the whole COPO thing happened...

In 2015 I ordered two new 2016 cars. I decided to park the 2012 because of it's unique history. That left the 2014. I reached out to Chevrolet about putting all the Camaros in the guide. They settled on the 2015.

With all of the knowledge gained in those years it was obvious that a 2015 Camaro built within the current rules for Stock Eliminator would weigh around 2,800 lbs without driver. That's 1,100 lbs. from what you want and 800 lbs. from the 2012 car that I owned!! The decision was made to keep the ballast to no more than 500 lbs.

That is the way the 2015 Camaro got to that weight.

If the NHRA wants new cars in the Class guide, they have to make a weight concession for all of the stuff that can legally be removed.

OK, that's my version of history. One day I'll share my story on the LS3 engine specs......